Study Guide to St. Augustine’s Confessions
An interesting and informative website:
http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/augustine/
Book I
You might find it helpful in your reflections on Book 1 to keep an eye out for a few especially
important themes and to give a little extra thought to some crucial passages. But don't, by any
means, feel compelled to restrict your attention to the things suggested here.
Passages to think about
Sections 1-6: This is Augustine's introduction to the Confessions. (The narrative of his life,
which will occupy the first nine books, begins at section 7.)
What prominent themes are introduced in these opening sections? What does Augustine
want us to know or be attentive to as we begin the work?
Why might Augustine think it appropriate or especially important to introduce these
themes at the outset of the Confessions?
What do we learn in these sections about his reasons for writing the Confessions? His
plan for the work? The audience he has in mind?
In modern autobiographies, the writer usually embeds some implicit argument about how
the reader stands to profit from such an exercise in narcissism. In a "confession"
addressed to God, how is the relationship between writer (Aug.) and readers (us)
otherwise negotiated? What is the effect of putting us in the position of eavesdroppers?
What is Augustine's role vis-a-vis us (and vice versa), if we are not his "official"
audience?
What books or texts seem important to him?
Section 1: The first puzzle in a book and work full of puzzles: ". . . which comes first: to call
upon you or to praise you? To know you or to call upon you? . . ." (Augustine loves to
raise puzzles by means of series of questions in this way—watch for it throughout the
Confessions.)
What exactly is the puzzle? See if you can explain it clearly without using interrogatives.
Does Augustine offer a resolution of the puzzle? If so, what is it and what (if anything)
does it tell us about the project Augustine is launching?
Sections 2-4: More puzzles: about God's magnitude, about God's relation to space, to places, to
persons.
Try to explain what each of the puzzles is about? What ideas or texts or common ways of
speaking give rise, on reflection, to contradiction or absurdity?
Sections 5-6: Augustine finally begins actually to call upon God (after thinking long and hard
about whether it's possible and how one can do it).
What does he call on God to do? Why?
Augustine introduces the theme of his "talking," "speaking," "telling," "finding words,"
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